The Reason for The French Road
A reward. A (sort of) retirement celebration. Certainly both and more. We have always been a fan of the road trip, that immersive excursioning experience that allows the traveler to truly see what's out there and be part of all the places wandered through and explored. Road trips are best if you're with your soulmate, and for the French Trip we were fortunate enough to have the chance to return. You see, we've been to France before, back in the summer of 2013, with our colelctive four kids. We spent almost a week in Paris touring all the main sights and doing the primary experiences. But travelling with two 16 year-olds, a 15 year-old, and a 14 year-old is a very different kind of trip than this one.
Note that only a select few of the +1,000 pictures are here, but hopefully they give some perspective of what we saw (and you could see, if you're willing to get behind the wheel). Like the pages devoted to the 50 Trip and the journey to get the 66 Merc, this isn't so much for you the visitor, it's more for us the travellers, since years from now we'll only remember the highlights and not all the details.
The original reason for driving about for 36 days in France was to kick off our mutual retirement from the world of work with a bit of a bang. We haven't been on a 'real' vacation since New Orleans back in 2019 and this was to make up for putting our energies into the cottage and being somewhat fiscally responsible. I was retired unceremoneously in April 2025. Naomi was planning to hang up her communications spurs in June 2026. That's why the France trip was planned to kick off September 7, 2026. But Naomi was asked if she would stay to the end of January 2027 and offered to use her vacation time to make the trip happen. So it's a partial celebration - wait for the Portugal and Spain page in early 2027 to read about the full celebration.
The Trip, In A Nutshell
The places we stayed, in order, runs like this: Paris, Giverny, Amboise, Sarlat La Caneda, Carcassonne, Saint Remy de Provence, Villefranche Sur Mer, Grenoble, Annecy, Colmar, Strasbourg, and back to Paris. We bought the flights early and travelled Air France Premium Economy both ways for a titch over $5K. We leased (really a tax free sale with guaranteed buy back) a brand new Renault Symbioz Gas Hybrid with an automatic transmission for about $70/day CAD for 32 days. Hotels were rather posh and I'll update the cost for each stay as we go along.
YYZ To CDG - September 7/8
Our flight had been changed a couple of times leading up to the departure date with seat changes each time. But on departure day flight AF357 was scheduled to depart at 6pm local and land at Charles De Gualle at 7:25am (+1 day) Paris time. Our premium economy seats were 18A and 18B on a Boeing 777-300ER which meant we were on the sunny side of the flight with a bulkhead directly behind. That bulkhead was a boon, as will be detailed in the return flight section way down below.
Limo to the airport was fine, priority baggage check in was a nice feature despite the line-jumping gent that got the hairy eyeball from all the other folks doing the queue properly. Time for a last smoke in a YYZ poorly ventilaed cancer box and then off to security. Again, bing in priority lines was a feature. Carry on backpack and Longchamps pliage sniffed for explosives, then through the quiet-guy scanner (the large security gent runnning the left line was quite a militant shouter of instructions). I got pulled aside because of the cooler can but once that was examined all good. Our security guy was tremendously helpful to a French couple ahead of us who were bringing back some items that caused some concern but in the end were fine. Wandered the terminal to the gate, checked out the Visa Infinite Lounge and saw no reason to bother with it. Sat down in some worn out seating with a view of our sky charriot and started the boarding wait.
Before boarding started, the eager beavers had jumbled the lines, so we took the "be aggressive" appraoch and cut into the priority line. Got onto the plane, admired our semi-swank seats with the integrated noise-cancelling headphones and actual hip room, and settled in for the seven hour ride. And yes, of course there was a crying baby in economy. Take off was fine, free champagne was gross (how does Air france screw that up?), lemon fresh towels were welcome, little travel packet of stuff was useless, meal was either scallops or mushroom pasta - we both got pasta - was meh and the butter for the bread was melted all over the tray, red wine with meal was gross (how does Air france screw that up?). After all that busy and a cup of coffee, it was time to settle in. Naomi used the sick bag, likely a result of not eating much for a while pre-flight and the electrolye-infused water that's supposed to help with jet lag. Once recovered, she watched some TV and slept a little, I diligently watched the live map to make sure the pilots were following the flight plan.
Pre landing there was a little breakfast. It was pretty good.
The flight touched down smoothly in the morning sun a few minutes ahead of schedule and then proceeded to taxi what seemed like eight times around the airport before arriving at the gate. Deplaning was fine, customs included scanning passports and photo recognition in an automated cattle pen setup, mini train to main terminal 2E and baggage claim. Priority baggage means it popped out in less than 5 minutes and we were off to run the gauntlet of scammer taxi drivers to have a post-flight dart and then queue for the offical taxis. Once belted in to a Toyota RAV driven by an over-cologned middle eastern gent
we headed to the Academie Hotel Saint Germain. Unbeknownst to us, the new President of Syria was in town for the week and caused a number of road closures, so what should have been about a 45 minute drive turned into over 2 hours.
The weather was warm, the graffiti was top notch and the endless lane splitting motorcycles and scooters we entertaining if not somewhat off-putting. A number of police motorcades comprised of unmarked cars and motorclycle officers wiggled through the traffic with their signature "bee-boop" sirens blaring away. All good fun, but such a long ride. We arrived at the hotel at 10:30am, well ahead of check-in time, but Patricia who seemed to tbe the manager was happy to store our luggage until our room was ready. We then set off on our first Paris walkabout.
4 Nights In Paris - September 8
First things first - get some Euros. We walked south to Boulevard Saint-Germain and then turned east at Square Taras-Chevtchenko and walked over to the BNP Paribas beside the L'embacle Fountain and withdrew €90. Then the objective was to visit the Shakespeare and Company bookstore and then meander about. Further along Saint-Germain to Rue de Buci then up Rue Dauphine to the Seine at the Pont Neuf. We walked along the river to Pont Saint-Michel and reminisced a little about Saint Chapelle's windows and Notre Dame back in 2013 as we then diverted along Rue de la Huchette to arrive at a long lineup to enter the bookstore. By now it was getting close to noon and it was hot. One executive decision later and we skipped the bookstore in favour of a wander to Luxembourg Park and to see other spots from our 2013 trip like Hôtel Luxembourg Parc and Église Saint-Sulpice.
From the bookstore and Square Pierre-Gilles de Gennes